First of all, I would like to
congratulate Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser on his
election as President of the General Assembly at its
sixty-sixth session. I am confident that his able
leadership will lead this session to a successful result.
My congratulations also go to the Republic of South
Sudan on its admission to the United Nations.
This year marks the twentieth year of
membership of the Democratic People’s Republic of
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Korea in the United Nations. Our country joined the
United Nations as a result of its desire to defend world
peace and achieve mankind’s common prosperity,
working together with all United Nations Members.
Since that time, the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea has remained faithful to the purposes and
principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as it
had pledged.
However, given the present status of international
relations, the logic of power and highhanded politics
has become all the more obvious, thus negating the
principle of sovereign equality, despite the efforts and
desires of the United Nations Member States. A few
countries are involved in interference in internal affairs
and the use of force against sovereign States in an
attempt to dominate regions where they feel they have
strategic interests under the pretext of protecting
civilians and defending peace.
Regrettably, the United Nations has been misused
in this process. International law and order have been
violated and undermined by the arbitrary and high-
handed acts of some major Powers. Given that current
reality Member States should reaffirm the principle of
defending peace and sovereign equality as enshrined in
the Charter of the United Nations, and speed up the
process of reform of the United Nations, including
enhancing the power of the General Assembly.
A long time ago, the General Assembly adopted
resolutions on dismantling the United Nations
Command in Korea and putting an end to the United
States blockade against Cuba, which have not been
implemented so far. This is just a random example that
highlights the urgent need to enhance the authority of
the General Assembly. To enhance the authority of the
General Assembly it is urgently necessary to put in
place a mechanism whereby Security Council
resolutions related to peace and security, such as those
on sanctions and the use of force, are subject to the
approval of the General Assembly before they take
effect.
Two other areas where the prevailing logic of
power in international relations can clearly be seen are
the Third Committee of the General Assembly and the
Human Rights Council. Though it is said that reform is
intended to put an end to politicization, selectivity and
double standards in dealing with human rights issues,
there still remains the prevailing reality whereby
specific countries are selected for discussion of their
human rights situations, while other major human
rights violators are simply passed over in silence, all in
accordance with the political objectives and interests of
the West and the criteria of Western values. It is our
view that the reform process of the human rights
bodies should be intensified, so as to enhance the
system that seeks to ensure genuine freedoms and
rights for the people of all countries, and respect for
their diverse histories, cultures, ideas and systems.
Meanwhile, some progress has been made in the
field of sustainable development, one of the three goals
set by the United Nations for the last two decades
following the Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development. However, we are still faced with
tremendous challenges.
We consider that the United Nations Conference
on Sustainable Development to be held in 2012 should
take practical steps towards the creation of a peaceful
environment for development, the establishment of fair
international economic and trade relations, the removal
of sanctions, the implementation of official
development assistance commitments, the transfer of
environmentally friendly technology and increased
financial assistance to developing countries.
It is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people
to live free of the Israeli occupation and to create an
independent State of their own. It is also an obligation
of the international community to admit Palestine as a
full-fledged United Nations Member State. The
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea recognized
Palestine as a State in 1988 and we support its
admission to the United Nations. We believe that the
aspirations of the Palestine people will be translated
into a reality.
Today in the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea, a general campaign is on in full swing to build a
powerful State, under the wise leadership of the great
General Kim Jong Il. The Government of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is
concentrating all its resources on economic
development, with a main emphasis on significantly
improving the people’s livelihood. We are achieving
unprecedented and remarkable success. Our economic
development in the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea will make a meaningful contribution to the
efforts of the international community to foster
regional development and to attain the Millennium
Development Goals.
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In that context, a stable and peaceful environment
is a vital prerequisite for the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea and its people today in their struggle
for economic development. To our regret, however, the
Korean peninsula does not yet have with a lasting and
stable peace mechanism. The national division imposed
by outside forces and the fragile armistice that leaves
us in a state of neither war nor peace have now been in
place for more than half a century. That is the stark
reality of the Korean peninsula.
Despite the unanimous aspirations and desires of
all the people at home and abroad who want peace and
stability, the arms build-up and nuclear war exercises
continue to be staged one after another against the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in and around
the Korean peninsula. Because of that, there is a
constant recurrence of a dangerous situation on the
Korean peninsula, which is often driven to a brink of
war.
The prevailing situation not only poses a grave
threat to the sovereignty and security of our Republic
but also obstructs the efforts of our people to achieve
peaceful development. Had it not been for the Songun
ideology implemented by the great leader of our
people, General Kim Jong Il, and had it not been for
our powerful war deterrent, the Korean peninsula
would have been turned into a theatre of war scores of
times and our peaceful economic development would
have been unimaginable.
The Government of the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea remains consistent in its stand to
secure peace and stability and move towards the
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through
dialogue and negotiation. The present circumstances of
the Korean peninsula require all parties concerned to
seize the opportunity for dialogue and take courageous
decisions to act boldly on solving the fundamental
issues.
The continued existence of the tense situation on
the Korean peninsula is attributable to the hostile
relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea and the United States, which give rise to
mistrust and confrontation. As long as hostility exists
between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
and the United States, with the parties to the Military
Armistice Agreement levelling guns at each other,
mistrust and confrontation will not dissipate and the
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will not be
possible.
It was with that in mind that the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea proposed again last year to
hold talks for replacing the Armistice Agreement with
a peace agreement. The signing of a peace agreement
as part of implementing resolution 3390 (XXX),
adopted at the thirtieth session of the General
Assembly in 1975, would be the most effective
confidence-building measure towards alleviating the
mistrust between the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea and the United States, and would further serve
as a driving force for ensuring the denuclearization of
the Korean peninsula.
Denuclearization of the whole Korean peninsula
was the last instruction given by the great leader of the
Korean people, President Kim Il Sung. The
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula specified in
the Joint Statement of 19 September 2005 is a process
of turning the whole Korean peninsula into a nuclear-
free zone based on complete removal in a verifiable
manner of the actual nuclear threat to the Korean
peninsula from the outside.
The issue of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula
originated, for all intents and purposes, from the
hostile policy and nuclear war threats of the United
States against the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea. Such being the case, the United States is the
main party that is responsible for and capable of
removing the root cause of the problem. The nuclear
issue would never have been raised at all, if the United
States had refrained from deploying nuclear weapons
in the Korean peninsula and threatening the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with nuclear
arms.
Under the present circumstances, in which the
Korean peninsula stands at the crossroad of either a
relaxation of tension or a continuation of the vicious
cycle of aggravation of tension, the United States
should boldly abandon its hostile policy against the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and move
towards full-fledged dialogue, proceeding from its
long-term strategic vision. The Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea will make strenuous efforts in the
future as well to establish a durable and lasting peace
mechanism on the Korean peninsula and will continue
to cooperate with all parties concerned for
unconditional resumption of the Six-Party Talks.
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Inter-Korean relations have been developing
favourably on the Korean peninsula since the
publication of the June 15 North-South Joint
Declaration. However, it is extremely unfortunate that
North-South relations have now been aggravated to
their worst state ever, with a widespread atmosphere of
warmongering and confrontation with fellow
countrymen, after the current South Korean authorities
took office. There is a serious problem behind all that,
the issue of fundamental contradictions and antagonism
in the approach towards the reunification of the Korean
peninsula.
Different ideas and systems exist now in the
North and the South of Korea. Given that reality, the
choice of method of reunification is itself a vital issue
that will lead either to national reunification or to
national disaster. The North and the South of Korea,
through the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration of
2000, recognized that there is common ground in the
federal formula proposed by the North and the
confederal one proposed by the South for reunification,
and agreed to orient the reunification along this
direction in the future.
That agreement between the North and the South
enjoyed warm support and was welcomed by our
fellow countrymen and the international community,
including the United Nations. But the present South
Korean authorities reneged on the June 15 North-South
Joint Declaration on the agreed reunification method
and came up with what they called the theory of
unification through absorption, which presupposes the
collapse of the other party, and thus put inter-Korean
relations into a phase of touch-and-go confrontation
and increased the danger of war with each passing day.
In view of the prevailing reality of the Korean
peninsula, the so called unification through absorption
is a road to war, whereas the federal formula is a road
to peace. The federal formula is a realistic proposal for
reunification premised on coexistence and the best
possible method of reunification able to prevent war. It
is also a reasonable proposal for reunification that
accords with the interests of the region and the
neighbouring countries, as it presupposes the neutrality
of the reunified State.
If the present South Korean authorities truly want
to see the relaxation of tensions in the Korean
peninsula and an improvement in inter-Korean
relations, they should abandon their confrontational
attitude against peace and reunification and switch over
to a policy of respecting and fully implementing the
15 June Joint Declaration and 4 October Declaration,
agreed at the summit level between the North and the
South.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will,
in the future, further strengthen and develop friendly
and cooperative relations with all United Nations
Member States, in accordance with its foreign policy
principles of independence, peace and friendship, and
will do its level best to defend peace and security in the
Korean peninsula and in the rest of the world and to
promote joint development and the common prosperity
of all humankind.